A guest for a day? An analysis of Uzbek ‘language migration’ into the Japanese educational and labour markets

ABSTRACT

By elaborating on the findings of two data sets collected in both Uzbekistan and Japan, this paper demonstrates that Japan has increasingly become a new frontier for Uzbek youngsters who use educational opportunities to seek temporary employment. This attitude of Uzbek students in Japan, which relates to their predisposition towards ‘work’ rather than ‘study’, can be explained by several factors. One set of explanations relates to their commitment to link their future with a home country due to the expectations of their families and communities. Another, at least partially, relates to the ambiguous and unsettled image of the role of Japan for their future, which might be contributing to their study–work imbalance.

KEYWORDS:

• illegal migration
• language schools
• Japan
• Uzbekistan
• migration network

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to two anonymous reviewers whose insightful and constructive comments greatly helped to reshape the initial version of this article. They also thank Dr. Rico Isaacs and the whole editorial team for their kind and timely support in the publication process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 With respect to the biases of this survey, interviewing ‘language migrants’ imposes certain limitations because certain topics that caused the students to feel uncomfortable had to be avoided. These included family issues and social backgrounds, as many informants fear that they can be easily identified by those who come from the same location. Therefore, our survey design primarily focused on the motivations and adaptation strategies of ‘language migrants’ while avoiding questions of a personal nature that might discourage the respondents from cooperating.

2 The same characteristics can be also found in the case of Uzbek students in South Korea.

3 The data are obtained from the Japanese Ministry of Justice reports (Zairyu Gaikokujin Toukei) regarding foreign nationals residing in Japan for the period 1995–2018.

4 According to the opinion poll conducted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in 2016, 60% of total respondents in Uzbekistan answered that they can ‘trust’ and ‘somewhat trust’ Japan (https://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/files/000159231.pdf).

5 The above data must be approached as reflecting a certain bias and under-reporting. First and foremost, there are reasons to believe (by following student/migrants communications on the telegram social networking channel) that remittances are much larger (reported to be between JPY150,000 and 300,000 per month) than those reported on the current survey for several reasons. Migrant/students do not report their full amounts for fear this information will be abused or used against them. The popularity of attending language schools in Japan from Uzbekistan is growing even at the time of coronavirus, thus implying that those incoming students see the financial profitability of this exercise beyond the amounts indicated by our respondents.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Nippon Foundation for the Study of Sustainable Development Goals (PI Professor Usuyama Toshinobu); a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) 21K12400 (PI: Timur Dadabaev); and a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) 21H00686 (PI: Professor Junichi Akashi) and 19H04347 (PI: Professor Shigeto Sonoda).